


young, dumb and in love

by birdbox (Bella_Barbaric)



Series: two worlds colliding [10]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:32:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bella_Barbaric/pseuds/birdbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>and I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.</i>
</p>
<p>“Then just stop going there for coffee, since you don’t drink the stuff anyway,” Liam suggests. “Problem solved.”</p>
<p>“I can’t do that!” Killian looks scandalised at the thought.</p>
<p>“And why is that?”</p>
<p>“Because,” Killian responds as though it explains everything. And it’s nothing to do with Emma’s (as her name badge reads) voice as she reads out his name on the cup, or her smile when she hands it to him. “Anyway, I’m acquiring the taste for coffee. One sip at a time.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	young, dumb and in love

**Author's Note:**

> Received _“I really hate coffee but I’m a regular because I hate to start my day without talking to you”_ as a prompt but I thought it'd be a good addition to my AU series since I haven't posted anything in a while. Enjoy!

“God, you really are pathetic. Has anyone ever told you that?” Liam asks as Killian takes one small sip of the small Americano he ordered, screws up his face in disgust and promptly drops the whole cup in the trash, just out of sight of the Starbucks window like he does every morning. The good news is that his tongue has  now become immune from the initial burn of the first sip; either that or he’s just burnt off enough cells on his tongue for it not to bother him anymore.

“You have,” Killian answers as they get in the lift. “Most mornings for the last month and a half, and then countless times during our childhood, so I guess ‘yes’ is the answer.”

“Just ask for her number, for crying out loud. This is genuinely painful to watch. And expensive too—God, how much are you actually spending on coffee that you don’t even drink? It’s, what, two dollars-twenty five per cup five mornings a week? You carry on like this and you’re throwing away…  _forty-five dollars_ a month on coffee, Killian. Forty-five dollars. Just because you don’t have the guts to ask the barista you’re infatuated with on a date.”

“She’s working, she doesn’t want some leery customer she’s not interested in asking for her number—I can’t imagine what women in the service industry have to put up with from male customers and I’m not going to be one of them thanks very much.”

“Then just stop going there for coffee, since you don’t drink the stuff anyway,” Liam suggests. “Problem solved.”

“I can’t do that!” Killian looks scandalised at the thought.

“And why is that?”

“Because,” Killian responds as though it explains everything. And it’s nothing to do with Emma’s (as her name badge reads) voice as she reads out his name on the cup, or her smile when she hands it to him. “Anyway, I’m acquiring the taste for coffee. One sip at a time.”

The lift reaches Liam’s floor first where the rest of the big wigs of the shipping and haulage company they both work for reside, whilst Killian’s floor for the menial office workers is two up. Liam put in a good word for him once he finished college and while it’s not what he imagined he’d be doing with his degree in Geography, it’s still money and who is Killian to pass up money? Particularly since he’s practically throwing it away these days on coffees that end up in the rubbish—he really ought to start asking his coworkers if they want it, because it really is a waste of the fruits of Emma’s labour.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Liam shakes his head, looking equally amused and resigned, and walks out of the lift.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single sip!” Killian shouts before the doors close—earning a strange look from the one other patron of the lift, an elderly gentleman with spectacles that magnify his eyes at least ten times. Killian nods at him and looks away as though nothing happened.

-/-

“Crap weather we’re having, huh?” Emma comments to him one morning while she’s brewing his coffee.

Their usual conversations are limited to  _‘And the usual for you, sir?’_  (he goes in there so often that he has a usual now which is a small Americano) so this development takes a while for Killian’s brain to process.  He can’t even come up with a moderately intelligent response or one that might invite further conversation, which he knows he’ll kick himself for while he replays this conversation in his head all day. “What? Oh, um, yeah. Awful.”

“Suppose you must be used to it though.” Emma looks up and smiles at his confusion. “The accent. British, right?”

“Yeah, I lived there till I was fourteen,” Killian says.

“Cool,” Emma says with a smile. She hands him the coffee.

“Hey, um, would you want-” Killian starts, experiencing a sudden rush of confidence.

“Yeah?” Emma looks up, pushing a lock of golden hair behind her ear.

Another customer coughs pointedly behind him and the confidence disappears as quickly as it arrived. “Nothing, thanks for the coffee,” he mutters, dropping the change on the counter.

Outside, Killian curses to himself and throws the coffee in the trash with more force than usual. Two things happen for the rest of the day: it rains, and Killian is in a bad mood.

-/-

Three mornings and three coffees later (the last of which he manages to give to Ruby who works in the cubicle next to his and feels a little better for doing so), Killian’s day starts awfully and he has no reason to suspect it will get any better. He wakes up late, which not only means he misses walking to work with Liam and has to fire off a quick text to apologise, plus he gets to work too late to even think of going to Starbucks before running into the lift.

It’s mid-morning, Killian is bored and staring at the Newton’s cradle Liam bought him three Christmasses ago when a kick on the side of his desk makes him jump alert. It’s Emma.

It’s so out of context that Killian’s mouth just opens and closes for a few seconds.  “Oh, hey,” he says, in lieu of a better response.

“Hi,” Emma says. “Your brother came down and explained that you were running late and couldn’t come in for your coffee order. And asked me to bring it up for you.”

Killian is rendered momentarily speechless at Liam’s scheming.

“That’s… so kind.” Emma hands him the coffee cup while Killian curses Liam to the fiery pits of hell. She waits there expectantly, ostensibly for him to drink the damned thing. Killian lifts it to his lips and takes a long drink, holding back the reflex to gag as best he can. “Mmm, it’s, er, delicious.”

Emma looks deeply amused. “You don’t actually like coffee, do you?”

Killian can actually feel himself go white with surprise. “Of course I do! I buy one from you every morning!”

“-And I watch you throw it in the trash every morning too,” Emma tells him. “Gotta say, I’m starting to get a little insulted.”

_Busted_. Killian drops his forehead to his desk, white skin swiftly turning a deep shade of pink, and thinks if he hopes hard enough, the cheap tile-carpeted floor might just swallow him whole. He’d been so sure that bin was out of sight of the window.

“The question for me is why you’d lie and waste two dollars-twenty five every morning on a coffee you’re not going to drink,” Emma continues once Killian’s found the courage to lift his head.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“Say what?” she asks innocently.

“I was –oh God, this is so embarrassing-  I was coming in for you. To see you. Because I’m a pathetic excuse for a human being who can’t it together to actually ask you out,” Killian says in one big rush as though saying it faster will make the humiliation go away quicker. It doesn’t.

Emma doesn’t say anything for a while but Killian can’t bring himself to look up to read whatever creeped-out expression she must be wearing at his pitiful admission. If there’s a critical point for mortification, Killian feels like he must have reached it by now.  “Your brother told me that too actually,” she finally says to him.

(Killian is going to  _murder_  Liam and make it look like an accident.)

Emma nods at him, almost smiling, and she walks away without another word. Killian thinks through his options: clearly, he’s going to have to resign and possibly emigrate somewhere far away, it’s not like he really ever liked his name anyway—it’s as good a time as any to change it, right? He’s about to throw the blasted coffee –the root of all his problems- in the bin next to his desk when the first few digits of a phone number on other side of the coffee collar catches his eye and makes his heart jump.

_Killian—call me and maybe we can go out sometime— but no coffee, I promise! Emma x_

(Allowing himself a few discreet fist pumps into the air, Killian thinks maybe he’ll buy Liam something nice after he’s murdered him for being a dickhead. Maybe.)


End file.
